1761-1765. The Murder of Ensign Holmes at Post Miami (Fort Wayne, Indiana)
A romantic traditional story relates that in May a beautiful Ojibway maiden,' in love with the Detroit commandant, Major Gladwyn, revealed to him the widespread plot of Pontiac to seize the entire west, and that the capture of Detroit post was planned for the following day. Thus warned, Gladwyn was enabled to hold the fort through a siege of several months, during which time Fort Sandusky, Fort St. Joseph, Fort Michilimackinac, Fort Ouiatanon and Post Miami passed into the hands of the savages. At the little fort on the St. Joseph river on the site of Fort Wayne, the garrison learned with fear of the further activities of the Indians. Nevertheless, Ensign Holmes, the commandant, was destined to be the first to lose his life. "And here," observes Parkman, "I cannot but remark on the forlorn situation of these officers, isolated in the wilderness, hundreds of miles, in some instances, from any congenial associates, separated from every human being except the rude soldiers under their command and the white or red savages who ranged the surrounding woods.
The commandant, came to tell him that a squaw lay dangerously ill in a wigwam near the fort, and urged him to come to her relief. Having confidence in the girl, Holmes forgot his caution and followed her out of the fort. Pitched on the edge of a meadow [in the present Lakeside], hidden from view by an intervening spur of woodland, stood a great number of Indian wigwams. When Holmes came in sight of them his treacherous conductress pointed out that in which the sick woman lay. He walked on without suspicion, but, as he drew near, two guns flashed from behind the hut and stretched him lifeless on the grass. The shots were heard at the fort and the sergeant rashly went out to learn the cause. He was immediately taken prisoner, amid exulting yells and whoopings. The soldiers in the fort climbed upon the palisades to look out, when Godefroy, a Canadian, and two other white men, made their appearance and summoned them to surrender, promising that if they did so their lives would be spared.
Such is the story as Parkman tells it, and we are given further "details" by Captain Robert Morris, who came to the village in the next year and who received the account from "the sole survivor" of the garrison. According to the tale of this man, whom Morris found chopping wood by the river bank, as the major's boat came floating by, the savages "killed all but five or six whom they reserved as victims to be sacrificed when they would lose a man in their wars with the English. They had all been killed except this one man," continues Morris, "whom an old squaw had adopted as her son." Possibly this "sole survivor" thought he was telling the truth, but it develops that he was not the only one whose life was spared. Others who lived to relate the story, and who told it under oath, were James Barnes, William Bolton, John McCoy and James Beems, who, as they found their way to Detroit during the succeeding weeks, gave their testimony before Gladwyn's court of inquiry. The substance of their combined narratives, together with that of John Welch and Robert Lawrence, traders, showed that the French men in the plot took the lead in the affair, and that the conduct of the savages stands out in commendable contrast with that of their white associates.
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